


Bird Of The Drowned City

by inkvoices



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Merfolk, Community: be_compromised, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Gen, Sign Language, Sisters, nomadic merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: Natasha is finally old enough to follow her sisters when they slip away in the night to explore the Drowned City.  She's a woman grown now, with the bones of many kills woven in her hair to prove it. She's not afraid of the City, or the legends about it, and certainly not of the stranger she finds living there...
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov
Comments: 20
Kudos: 76





	Bird Of The Drowned City

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kiss_me_cassie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiss_me_cassie/gifts).



> For **kiss_me_cassie** as part of the be_compromised [Halloween Party](https://be-compromised.dreamwidth.org/567132.html). With thanks to **CloudAtlas** for beta reading!

_Careful_ , Yelena signs to Natasha as she unhooks the driftline from her harness and slips free of the sleeping net. 

Natasha keeps her tailfin still and instead slowly propels herself towards her sisters with her hands to avoid stirring the water and waking the elders, with a little help from the dorsal fin on her lower back to stabilise herself. She looks back once to check, but no one follows. The rest of the clan remain attached to the net to avoid drifting apart and away while they sleep.

_Come on, come on_ , Nadia signs repeatedly with one-hand, quick with excitement, until Ava grabs her wrist to make her stop.

The Drowned City lies a quarter-sleep-time away, in the shallows, past the place where tomorrow they will hunt whales. It’s a place of stone and sharp angles lost to the world above, a reminder to the creatures of air that they cannot challenge the sea. Legend has it that when the waves are still and the current runs cold the above-creatures descend to view their defeat, trailing bubbles and carrying blinding lights.

Natasha whistles Yelena’s name to get her eldest sister’s attention as she swims up alongside her and asks, _What do you think it was for?_

It’s the first time the others have decided she’s old enough to bring along when they go exploring and she’s never seen the City before.

_They live in them on the land_ , Yelena tells her. _Cities. Elder Ivan says they need to, to protect them from the air._

_How do they take the cities with them?_ Ava asks as the first pieces of stone come into view in the murky shallow water, forming an unnatural flat ledge running along the ocean floor. As the sisters follow it, vertical blocks of stone made up of smaller blocks rise up on either side, a great many merfolk long.

_They don’t_ , signs Yelena. _They stay in one place._

Natasha can’t fathom it. Do the above creatures only eat one source of food and not follow the patterns of where the fish shoals and whale pods roam? Do they not travel to trade and war with other clans? Do they not seek out warmer and colder air as the mood takes them or, unlike water, does all air feel the same? 

Ava sounds a few clicks of amusement at the foolishness of the above creatures not understanding that people must keep moving in order to survive. She abandons the conversation, swimming away from the flat ledge, so Natasha keeps her questions to herself. 

[Follow. Good], Nadia trills as she swims after Ava through an opening into a circular stone block. It stands out from the others in its difference of shape and by being shorter than most of the blocks surrounding it.

_That one has lots of carvings inside,_ Yelena signs.

Natasha lets her shoulders rise and fall to signal disinterest, trying to cover for the fact that she’s not comfortable with the idea of swimming into the dark insides of an above-creature block. What if it falls apart and buries them?

Her sister rolls her eyes and tugs on the end of one of Natasha’s braids, to remind her that she is woman grown now with the bones of many kills woven in her hair to prove it. She is armed with knives of coral and bone and stone at her wrists, with hooks and seaweed rope in the net harness around her upper torso where all that is hers is carried, with the power of her tail. She has been raised and trained by the Clan of Blood. There are dangers to respect in the seas, but none that Natasha should fear.

Still, she hesitates as Yelena follows Ava and Nadia into the dark, which is how she spots the shadow above that darts inside one of the tallest blocks. It’s the wrong shape and too alone to be one of the fish or whales found here now. If it’s a spy from another clan they’re close enough to do damage. 

Natasha considers calling for her sisters, but she doesn’t want to alert the Other. Besides, she is a woman grown. 

She checks her favourite knife is secure within easy reach and swims up the side of the block, keeping close so if the Other looks out from the openings at the top of the block they will find it hard to see her and so any motion detected might be mistaken by a fool for the current meeting the stone. She doesn’t stop when she reaches the pinacle, but powers her way through an opening to keep the element of surprise, a knife in each hand.

The Other is definitely surprised. He backs up, both hands empty and raised in surrender, but stops short of leaving the block. They’re in a small, square enclosure with a large opening on each side where escape would be easy. She suspects he saw her arrive with her sisters and doesn’t want to attract their attention.

[Clan?] Natasha trills low at him, demanding. She bares her sharp, pointed teeth at him in warning and pushes herself up to float a little higher than him, to intimidate and to give herself the advantage in the coming fight.

He doesn’t answer, just stares at her wide-eyed from under short, boneless hair. 

[Clan?] Natasha tries again. [Spy?]

His eyes flick between her mouth, her gills, and her knives, but otherwise he makes no move and he doesn’t reply.

He’s thin and not a great deal longer than Natasha, a shadow on his jaw but no beard yet. Not yet a full grown man and his hands remain empty, so she chances securing one of her knives away in order to be able to sign with one hand.

_What clan are you from?_

When he starts to lower his hands to sign back, she gestures at him with her knife to keep them where they are. Sound will be able to provide enough detail for the answers that she wants.

He looks frustrated, screws up his face, and makes an odd whistling noise that could be a clan name or might be ‘seven whales mating’. Natasha can’t make heads or tails of it.

_Can you not sound?_

He shakes his head and starts to lower his hands again, and Natasha is curious enough to let him.

_I can’t hear_ , he tells her. _It makes it hard to sound._

He has good hands, callused from hunting and handling weapons, that make clear sign shapes.

_What clan are you from?_ she asks again.

_I don’t have one._

Natasha doesn’t believe him. Everyone has a clan.

He slowly curls his tailfin forward towards her so that she can see his clan notches, but where he should have the cuts that show what clan he belongs to instead there’s a jagged curve like a large bite has been taken out of his fin… or like someone has cut out his clan notches.

Natasha jerks back with a small squeak of horror that she’s grateful he can’t hear.

This is worse than the nightmare of drifting away. Everyone drifts, when they’re sleeping or not paying attention or a current takes hold of them, but if you become lost the oceans are vast and deep and changeable, and it’s hard to ever find your clan again. 

_They cut you loose?_ she signs, willing her hand not to shake.

_I cut myself loose_ , he signs definantly.

_You’re a liar_ , she tells him, because such a thing is unthinkable.

No one survives long without a clan. To be cut off is to die. To cut yourself off…

Natasha looks him over properly from hair to tailfin, paying attention to the details. His hair is not just worn short like a child with no bones to mark his kills, but has been hacked short so there is no hair to braid bones into. The harness over his chest is old and too tight for him, although the knife wraps around his wrists are new and the knives sharp. He’s lean and thin, pared down but not yet underfed. His torso bears scars, his scales are dull, and he can’t hear or sound, but his eyes are sharp when she brings hers back up to meet them.

He’s the strangest person Natasha has ever met.

She doesn’t know what to do with him. Her clan kills Others that might threaten them, but one clan-less man isn’t a threat and surely alone he will die soon anyway?

_Why did you do it?_ she signs, trying to understand. She looks again at his boneless hair. _Are you weak? Can you not kill?_

_I can kill._ His lips twist upwards in a curve without showing teeth and she thinks he’s amused. _The problem was I didn’t kill when I was told to._

_Why?_ Natasha drifts closer, watching his face.

_I don’t kill people who aren’t trying to kill me._

She wonders if he expects her to extend the same sentiment. True, she hasn’t killed someone who wasn’t fighting back before, but unless meeting Others for trade or for the seasonal Challenge, where there is a chance to change clans at mating season to mix blood, her clan has always killed Others. It’s their way. That’s why their clan are strong and survivors and can journey where they please in search of the best food and cleanest waters and most profitable trade.

When not killing Others, she remembers, it’s customary to give introductions. Not that she’s decided whather to kill him or not yet.

_I am called N-A-T-A-S-H-A_ , she tells him, and it’s strange to be spelling it out with her fingers rather than whistling her name. _I am of the Clan of Blood._

He blinks at that and, she thinks, looks at least a little wary. Natasha is proud at this acknowledgement of her clan’s reputation. They’re the strongest, the quickest to kill, and they win their fights. 

_I am called Bird_ , he signs.

Natasha clicks in amusement, then copies how he curved his lips without showing teeth.

It’s funny because it’s true. He is a thing - it’s a thing-name, not a person-name, so he must have been the runt of his clan - that doesn’t belong. She has seen birds, above the water and the birds that dive into the water but must return to the air or die. She wonders where it is that he must return to and where he belongs, if not a clan.

She has so many questions.

[Natasha], she hears Nadia whistling from below followed by a trill of, [Leaving!]

_My sisters are calling me_ , she tells Bird. 

His fingers twitch towards the knives at his right wrist, then fall still.

_I can’t just let you live and swim away_ , Natasha signs slowly, thinking it through as she forms the shapes. _Even if you aren’t a spy or a threat now, if another clan comes they could make you tell them what you’ve seen._

_I haven’t seen anything,_ he signs, shapes large and sharp and nearly touching her they’ve ended up so close.

_You’ve seen that the daughters of the Clan of Blood travel alone at times. You have met one of us and lived. Isn’t that enough?_ She considers him, testing her grip on the knife. _If I fight you, will you fight back?_

_Yes. If you fight me._

She believes him.

_I would win_ , she signs, accompanied by a few unintentional sad clicks.

She would, although it would be a waste.

Natasha reaches out across the short distance between them to rest her fingers on his chest, in a gap between the netting of his harness. His skin is smoother where there are scars and slightly warmer than that of those in her clan. 

Bird closes his eyes and his head drifts down until his forehead gently rests against hers.

She wonders how long it’s been since he’s touched another person.

Natasha pushes at his chest a little and pulls back to create enough space between them so she can sign, _If I do not kill you then my sisters will. If not them, then my clan. We kill Others._

_I know_ , he signs with one hand. The other he dares to rest on her waist where scales merge into skin. _Your clan is scared of Others._

Natasha stares at him. 

[Natasha], Nadia whistles again, closer this time.

[Wait], she trills to her sisters, then repeats it in sign for Bird followed by, _Be still._

She holds eye contact with him as she drifts downwards, reaching for his tailfin with her free hand and raising her favourite knife in the other. It only takes a moment to cut their clan mark into his fin, and a moment more to add her name mark. Only the elders can claim someone as clan, but anyone can claim a person or a thing as their own. Usually men claim women, elders claim a youngling, people claim things, but she will argue he is younger than her or a thing if it means she can keep him.

No one she knows would dream of cutting themselves loose. No one in her clan could survive alone. No one in her clan would dare to live in the Drowned City. She doesn’t know anyone like Bird. He’s interesting and different and she wants him.

[What?] trills Yelena, her head appearing in one of the openings. She raises her eyebrows at the Other, the blood in the water, and Natasha running her tongue along the edge of her bone knife, to keep it clean of blood and scales. _What in the Deep have you done?_

[Mine], Natasha trills, placing a possessive hand on Bird’s tail and using that to propel herself up next to him.

_Clearly._

Yelena swims closer and now is the time Bird finally pulls a knife, angling himself protectively in front of Natasha as if he would have a chance against Yelena.

_Calm down, little fish_ , she signs, along with a series of gentle clicks. _I’ll not harm one our sister favours. Although_ , she adds, raising an eyebrow at Natasha, _she should have waited for the Challenge time._

_My sister Y-E-L-E-N-A_ , Natasha informs Bird as her eldest sister circles him. _And A-V-A and N-A-D-I-A_ , as they swim up to join the rest of them. 

[Ava], Nadia whistles in correction. [Nadia.]

_He can’t hear or sound_ , Natasha tells her sisters, _but the Other is mine._

She slides her knife back into her wrist wrap so she can hook a hand into Bird’s harness and still have the other free to sign, enjoying how Nadia and Ava’s eyes widen at the sight.

_What if_ , Bird signs, low and in front of Natasha, _I choose not to go with you? Or what if I do, but your clan tells me to kill and I refuse?_

_Then cut yourself loose again_ , Natasha signs, turning towards Bird, ignoring the way Nadia flinches back at her words and how Yelena and Ava’s faces pale. _But I haven’t claimed you as clan, I’ve claimed you as mine. Would you prefer I killed you?_

He traces the backs of her fingers where she grips his harness with his, the barest of touches, then rests them against the knife at her wrist that drew his blood. He shakes his head.

[Problem], Ava whistles, using her tail to push water at her sisters to get their attention. _Do we say we found a fish in the Drowned City, get banned from coming here, and watched like the choicest feeding spot in case we ever try to slip away again? Or do we just hook onto the sleeping net and hope no one notices?_

_He’s not a fish_ , Natasha complains, but it’s lost as Nadia insists that they leave now before they’re late and the elders are awake, and Ava starts coming up with increasingly ridiculous suggestions for introducing ‘the fish’ to the clan. Yelena rolls her eyes at them all even as she pushes Ava out of one of the stone block openings, pointing out that as she’s the eldest any blame will fall on her anyway.

Bird looks a bit overwhelmed by suddenly being part of a pod swimming away from the City, but mirrors Natasha by hooking a hand in her harness and he keeps up.

[Not fish], Natasha insists, with a trill and sign at the same time. [Bird.]


End file.
